Saturday, 29 March 2008

The Canadian Arab Federation feels the new immigration proposals initiated by the Harper Tories are "dangerous". That being the case I think we can conclude that the Tories are on the right track. You can read about the CAF's concerns here at the Toronto Star.

OTTAWA–A proposal to give Canada's immigration minister sweeping new powers to pick and choose new immigrants is "dangerous" and could open the door to racial profiling, the Canadian Arab Federation warns.

The federation is urging the federal Liberals to oppose the proposed changes, even if it means defeating the minority Conservative government and an election Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion doesn't want.

"This is clearly a very, very dangerous piece of legislation," said Mohamed Boudjenane, executive director of the federation, an umbrella group representing 44 groups across the country.

"Tomorrow, the minister might decide: 'We don't like Arabs and Muslims here. We think they are terrorists. We think their culture and religion don't fit with Canada,' " he said in an interview.

The Muslim religion is not compatible with a western society like Canada. But that aside, the gentleman's comments make clear how race conscious racial and ethnic minority groups are in Canada all the while expecting the white majority of Canadians to be colour blind. Why does Arab immigration matter at all? Why should it matter to these people? They are already in Canada and if "a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian" as we are told then it shouldn't matter if Canada decided to close its door to Arabs. The fact is that Arab immigration matters to Arab immigrants because race matters, ethnicity matters, and immigration is the prime conduit for Arab colonization of Canadian lands. And this sentiment is not exclusive to Arabs but is shared by all of Canada's hyphenated immigrant groups (Indian, Chinese, Italian, etc). As racial and ethnic groups actively engage in the colonization of Canadian public spaces immigration matters are most important to them because if Canada were to decrease numbers, restrict particular immigrant groups, etc. it will hamper their colonial efforts.

Dion said this week his party won't topple the Tories over the immigration proposals. Boudjenane said the decision could affect the Liberals' traditional support among newcomers.

"How can this party portray itself as the party of immigration, the Trudeau era of multiculturalism, and here you have this dangerous piece of legislation and you might let it pass because you're not organized enough or your leader isn't charismatic enough to go in an election?" he said. "People would be more supportive of a gutsy party who will go . . . on a principled position than a party that will stay there until they're in better shape."

From the horse's mouth, the Liberal party is the immigrant's party of choice but we already know that.

What's at stake here is the colonization of Canadian lands. Canada's immigration system has been co-opted into a policy of colonialism by foreign peoples. I always wondered why it mattered to immigrants what Canada did with it's immigration policy. Why do they care if they are already in the country? It becomes clear when you realize immigrants want their own people coming into the country. Why? So they can colonize portions of Canada to offset Canadian culture all the while enjoy the benefits of living in Canadian society. They didn't come to Canada to integrate, assimilate and become a Canadian. They came to Canada because to them Canada is just a shopping mall, a lifestyle. Canada isn't a real country at all with a history or culture worth preserving. It's just some land with vast open spaces that everyone in the world is entitled to. Right?

I do not wish to give the impression that all Muslims are evil and terrorists and wish to turn Canada into a Islamic state of the world Caliphate. But there are many who do within Canada and outside it and I feel that we should place limits on Muslim immigration. To get a better understanding of why I feel this way you should watch the video below. It is around 17mins long, it is sensationalized, it is biased, and it contains disturbing imagery so considered yourself warned.

The first video can be watched here. You better watch is now because it may see the same fate as this one.

Most Muslims are not terrorists but most Muslims do not have to be. Most Muslims may not want to turn Canada into a caliphate but most don't have to. All you need is a few and since the Muslim world community has proven inept at policing itself and containing its more radical elements I feel Canada has little choice but to restrict Muslim immigration for the sake of national security. This is a case were a few rotten apples has spoiled the bunch. I do not support a total ban on Muslim immigration however I feel we should be cherry picking Muslim immigrants instead of mass importing which is what we do now.

The video should not be allowed to give a general picture of Muslims. This is wrong. But the video does turn the spotlight on a segment of the Islamic faith that is real, that is dangerous, and as an immigrant receiving nation we Canadians cannot afford to ignore and pretend it doesn't exist. To say that "not all Muslims are terrorists" is no consolation when a terrorist act is committed on Canadian soil and innocent people are killed. The Canadian government's commitment is to Canadians first, not the concerns of Muslim immigrants and until Islam can get it radical elements under control I feel Canada has no choice.

Thursday, 27 March 2008

Dalton McGuinty is just another run of the mill politician whose policies bend with the direction of the wind. To his credit, and to my surprise, he put a stop to the Islamic expansionist drive to give Sharia law a foothold in a western jurisdiction via family law in the Ontario arbitration act by revoking the act altogether. It was the right thing to do and I was surprised Dalton McGuinty did it because after all he is a Liberal premier. But when it comes to immigration issues he is just as ignorant as is any politician at the provincial or federal level. Were he informed of the mess that is Canada's immigration system he wouldn't say the things he said. Here is the article care of the Toronto Star.

OTTAWA–The federal government would be making a "huge mistake" by turning its back on immigrants just because they don't have a particular skill, Premier Dalton McGuinty says.

"I wouldn't want to shut out folks who don't have a skill," he told reporters yesterday, referring to the Conservative government's proposal to streamline the process for immigrants bringing skills desperately needed in Canada.

Canadians are sold on unpopular mass immigration levels by being incessantly told that we are in a labour shortage crisis and that Canada needs mass immigration to import those with the necessary skills to fill job vacancies. So why are we importing unskilled immigrants in the first place? Is it to fill low waged and unskilled jobs that middle class Canadians are too good for? Is it becuase middle class Canadians need third world immigrants to take care of their children and clean their toilets? Do they need third world immigrants to ensure wages are low so that middle class Canadians wouldn't have to suffer a 5 cent increase in the purchase of a cup of coffee so that Tim Horton's could pay it's employees a livable wage? Isn't it funny how I am the racist?

McGuinty said if those kinds of barriers had been in place, his family would have never emigrated to Canada from Ireland during the 1845-1852 potato famine.

"We had no skills, we couldn't speak English and we were dirt poor. But we were looking for opportunity and we brought with us a solid work ethic," he said, during a tour of a carpentry class.

Irish immigrants could not speak English in 1845? That news to me. In any event what he is doing is engaging in historical relativism as if Canada of 2008 is no different from the Canada of 1845. The times are different and thus Canada's immigration system should reflect the time and the needs of the country. The mass importation of unskilled immigrants in 1845 may have been acceptable but it isn't now. Besides what he is saying is no different from someone saying that since one of their eight or ten friends is an immigrant then therefore all immigration is good. The faulty reasoning is obvious.

Meanwhile, the federal Conservatives' assault on the Ontario government continued yesterday with an accusation that McGuinty ran a ``sponsorship-style" slush fund.

[...]

"All Dalton McGuinty has ever done on immigration is run a sponsorship-style slush fund that cost him his citizenship minister," Poilievre told The Canadian Press. "So we won't be taking any advice from him on immigration."

He was referring to Mike Colle, who resigned last year when it was revealed his department gave $32.4 million to multicultural groups with no oversight procedures.

Since this reporter used the word "assault" to describe a justified criticism of the Ontario Premier displays the bias from another one of the Toronto Star's "diverse writing staff". It is not an assault on Ontario. Smarten up!

Dalton McGuinty is responding to the very necessary overhaul of the immigration department by the federal Tories. I haven't blogged on it yet but I will get to it in time. But if Toronto Liberals and the Toronto Star are expressing concern over the overhaul then it must be the right thing.

If Canada is mass importing unskilled labour it should alert us to how serious the skills shortage really is not. Also, it is the mass importation of unskilled labour, which includes family members and refugees who do not need relevant job or language skills to enter Canada, that is contributing to poverty rates in Canada and creating slums and unsafe neighbourhoods. If Dalton McGunity wanted to effect positive change in Canada's immigration system he would support restrictions on unskilled and family class immigrants. But since the Liberal's are dependent on the ethnic vote and getting elected is more important than governing you cannot expect a Liberal politician, or NDP or Green for that matter, to do what is necessary. It took a Conservative government and they deserve our support.

Wednesday, 26 March 2008

Here is a commentary concerning immigration found in the Toronto Star that, as usual, fails to see the obvious. The commentator makes it his business to tell us that new immigrants need good jobs. Well so do many Canadians but who cares about them anyway? Has it occurred to this commentator that maybe there are no "good jobs" for new immigrants? That perhaps the alleged "skills shortage" is a lie used to sell Canadians on a policy that the majority are opposed to so as to import cheap labour from the third world to fill unfilled low waged jobs at fast food restaurants?

His commentary provides some valuable insight.

New immigrants need good jobs

Mar 25, 2008 04:30 AMMehdi RizviCommunity Editorial Board

The federal budget said that $22 million will be spent over two years, rising to $37 million per year by 2012-13, to "modernize" the immigration system, allowing faster processing of permanent resident applications.

The program is designed to shorten wait times for immigrants who have skills that would have an "immediate impact" on the economy. But it does not reflect realistic thinking immigration. Our enthusiasm to bring immigrants in quickly and our inability to create jobs in their chosen fields are contradictory.

The immigration process does not conclude with the stamping of a visa at the airport. It should be considered complete only when the landed immigrant finds a skills-oriented job with pay adequate to meet household expenses; otherwise it is merely an exercise in increasing poverty in Canada and frustration in immigrant families.

This is what I have been saying all along. We bring in immigrants regardless of their job prospects. We just assume they will find a job based on an arbitrary list of alleged labour shortages. Some labour shortages are real but others are not thus many immigrants come to Canada only to languish in low skill, low waged jobs. In effect Canada is sustaining and contributing to poverty rates.

If a doctor delivers pizza, the government considers him employed; in fact, he does not work to his potential and is unable to earn wages in keeping with his education and skills. Most newly arrived professionals are forced to accept survival jobs.

This should tip off anybody with half a brain in their head to ask the most obvious question considering these realities. Are there jobs for them here in Canada in the first place? The fact that this question is never asked is frustrating to say the least.

In 2006, the estimated 70,000 recent African-born immigrants had an unemployment rate of 20.8 per cent. Indeed, the relatively higher education level of recent immigrants does not translate into higher income. Instead, they become a source of educated but cheap labour.

A family of four that earns less than $26,800 is considered to be "low income." Between 1992 and 2000, nearly one-fifth of immigrants were in the low-income category for their first four to five years in the country.

[...]

Peel has an immigrant population of 49 per cent. A huge issue is settlement services. Immigrants live in multiple-family houses with several families compressed into a small place in violation of all safety standards.

This is what Christopher Hume means when he wrote about suburban slums.

One-third of all existing Canadian jobs are temporary, without benefits or security. That the political will to address the root problem is lacking is evident from the results to date. This problem needs to be taken seriously at all levels.

He goes on to suggest a strategy of job growth but the reality is that much of the job growth is in low wage service based jobs and for this reason immigrants are being brought into Canada en masse. If this commentator wants to address this issue with genuine intent he will want to consider pressuring Ottawa to reduce immigration numbers. If we don't then nothing is going to change for immigrants now or tomorrow.

Tuesday, 25 March 2008

Tuberculosis was, more or less, done away with in Canada or at least placed under control but now it has been making a resurgence. Why is that? Could mass immigration, coupled with poor screening of immigrants, have anything to do with it?

In some ways, tuberculosis treatment at Toronto's West Park Healthcare Centre has not changed much in 100 years.

[...]

Today, almost every patient treated at West Park survives the disease – even though the hospital treats the sickest patients in the province.

The TB Unit, which can house about 20 patients, primarily cares for those who have other infections and health complications, including HIV/AIDS, on top of TB. And some patients have strains of TB that are resistant to almost all drugs.

Toronto sees about 375 tuberculosis cases a year, about one quarter of the cases in Canada.

Drug-resistant strains emerged because poor TB control practices in developing countries caused the bacteria to mutate. One to 3 per cent are multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis, or MDR-TB. There have only been two known cases of extremely drug-resistant tuberculosis, or XDR-TB, in the city. The World Health Organization has reported only 30 per cent of people with XDR-TB can be cured.

[..]

People who have active tuberculosis pass on the bacteria when they cough. Someone who breathes in enough of these particles can get TB, but only 5 to 10 per cent of those will develop active TB...

[...]

The majority of West Park's patients – upwards of 95 per cent – are new to Canada, and the hospital offers tutors to help them learn English. Avendano says some patients are very sick.

Not only has mass immigration contributed to the doctor shortage but it is also putting the lives of Canadians at risk. Why are these cases of TB in Canada in the first place? Those infected should have been spotted and stopped at the border and denied entry.

Given the mess of our immigration system and its ineptitude at spotting health risks at the border it should be no surprise to anyone that Toronto was hit with the Hong Kong born virus SARS. If it wasn't Toronto then it would have been Vancouver since both cities have sizable Asian populations. We should be pressuring our government to do something about this. Our immigration system shouldn't be a danger to the health of Canadians not should it be allowed to be abused by those who come here under false pretenses to milk our health care system. We simply cannot afford it both in tax dollars and quality of life.

Of course most Muslims are not terrorists but most Muslims don't have to be. All you need is a few to cause real damage to society.

Wherever you find a sizable Muslim minority in any country you can expect things like this to pop up sooner or later. So is Muslim immigration worth it? Should Canada allow the influx of Muslims into Canadian society? I don't think so given the potential danger Muslims have made themselves out to be and that whole "Islam will dominate the world" thing. However others disagree.

We should be having these kinds of discussions now and we Canadians should not be afraid to demand a moratorium on Muslim immigration if need be or at least some form of quota system. If we don't then the cost may be in Canadian lives and damages to property. It's just the reality of the world. Deal with it.

The first of 65 Vietnamese "boat people" who languished for years in refugee camps after the West slammed the door, landed in Toronto yesterday, 18 years late for the start of a new life of freedom.

Thai Van Nguyen is just one of 2,200 lost refugees, all uprooted by a war that ended more than a quarter of a century ago. They were left stranded after the United Nations declared in 1990 they were no longer in need of protection. The declaration led the West to slam its doors, leaving people like Nguyen out of luck.

I just love how this reporter uses such loaded words as "slam" and "slammed" as in "the West slammed the door" to describe how the West stop accepting Vietnamese "boat people" as refugees after the United Nations no longer considered these people in need of protection. He could have wrote "the West stopped accepting" if he wanted to be objective but since he is writing another immigration puff piece objectivity must be discarded.

Nguyen, 56, arrived at a refugee camp alone in Palawan in the Philippines and ended up stuck; the former seminary student languished there as a stateless person for 18 years.

I may be wrong but it is to my understanding that refugees are expected make their claim in the first country of safety. Why didn't they make asylum claims in the Philippines? Why were they languishingly in a refugee camp in the Philippines for 18 years? Why didn't they apply for citizenship or was Canada the intended target from the get go.

Six other former boat people arrived earlier this month in Calgary and Vancouver, with 300 in total expected in the next few months, including some 85 in Greater Toronto.

All are supported by small sponsor groups who responded to last year's "Freedom at Last" campaign by Canada's 150,000-strong Vietnamese community.

Almost one million refugees fled Vietnam after the fall of Saigon to the Communist regime in 1975, and most of the refugees in the Philippines have been there since 1988.

They were at the tail end of the exodus, when the United Nations declared the Vietnamese were no longer in need of protection.

We shouldn't be accepting refugees the United Nations declares are in no need or protection. What does this say about those who really do need our help? Why are we granting asylum to people on "compassionate and humanitarian grounds" who don't need it when there are millions of people who really do need our assistance? The reason is that these people had the funds to get to Canada's shores while the others are too poor to do so. It costs money to get to Canada even as a refugee and this should beg questions as to who is really getting in as a refugee. Are legitimate refugees getting here or is our refugee system being abused as another avenue for economic immigration?

String of charges in Mississauga East-Cooksville as several board members quit over acclamationMar 19, 2008 04:30 AMJoanna SmithStaff Reporter

A group of Tories in Mississauga fear the federal party is abandoning its populist roots after officials sped up the process to choose who will run for a seat in the next election.

"I won't be a party to that kind of corruption," said Charles Conn, one of 10 people who recently resigned in protest from the electoral district association board of directors for Mississauga East-Cooksville.

The string of resignations came as the riding association moved quickly toward acclaiming former beauty queen and former Liberal Melissa Bhagat as its candidate.

I think we can easily assume Ms. Bhagat is in this for personal gain but then again who isn't? When someone can easily abandon one political party for another because a candidacy became available speaks volumes about the person's political commitments.

According to her official website, Bhagat is a fluently bilingual Glendon College graduate, the South Asian spokesperson for World Vision Canada and former host of Omni-TV's Bollywood Boulevard.

She is also a former beauty queen – one website detailing her preparations for a 2000 pageant includes provocative photos.

She ran in 2004 for the federal Liberal party nomination in Brampton-Springdale, but was shut out when then prime minister Paul Martin parachuted Ruby Dhalla into the riding.

Brampton-Springdale has a heavy South Asian population, most notably Sikh, and this is why Paul Martin placed Ruby Dhalla, a South Asian woman, as the Liberal candidate becuase he knows like we all do that people vote for their own and racial and ethnic minorities are no exception. That's why Ms. Dhalla got elected and that's why no non-South Asian will ever get elected to represent Brampton-Springdale ever again.

As for Ms. Bhagat she won't win. Even though she was undemocratically acclaimed as Conservative candidate to cater to the considerable South Asian population in that part of Mississauga I do not think South Asian block votes are big enough to deliver the seat to her like they are in Brampton-Springdale. Mississauga East-Cooksville has a significant immigrant population, not all South Asian. Besides, the Conservative party hasn't learned yet that immigrants and ethnic minority groups always vote Liberal. That's why they're here. Canada's modern immigration policy was forged by the Liberal party in the 1970s with political consequences in mind and it worked. Voter rich Toronto used to be traditionally Conservative but becuase of mass immigration the Tories cannot get elected in that town.

The greater concern is how race and ethnicity are playing a big part in Canadian politics. I'm sure Ms. Bhagat knows more about Bollywood love triangles than she does about Canadian history or politics but that doesn't matter. What does matter is her ethnicity and nowadays and in some ridings the colour of your skin is more important than your policy issues.

Canada has seen a rising number of Roma asylum seekers since lifting its visa requirement for Czech Republic visitors five months ago – and more are expected now that four other eastern European countries have been given the same exemption.

This month, Canada extended visa exemptions to Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Lithuania. All but the latter are populated by ethnic Roma, known colloquially as gypsies, who continue to face discrimination and social isolation in eastern Europe.

The European Union has been pressuring Canada to open its border to all 27 member states, eliminating barriers that especially involve eastern Europe.

Immigration Minister Diane Finley dropped the visa requirement for the Czech Republic as of Nov. 1.

Since then, claims for asylum by Czech visitors, in most cases Roma, shot up to 83 by the end of December, from zero the previous year. This past January, 45 more claims were entered.

There are concerns this could lead to a repeat of the 1996 influx of an estimated 4,000 Czech Roma into Canada after travel restrictions were eliminated. The majority were granted refugee status, but not before Canada reinstated a visa requirement.

This time, the Canadian government has made it known unofficially that should the number of Czech refugee claimants leap to 580 this year (or 2 per cent of all such claims Canada expects to process), it will restore the visa requirement.

If you want to make a refugee claim everyone in the world knows that Canada is the place to do it.

A Toronto immigration consultant has been found guilty of professional misconduct for failing to secure jobs for 24 Korean truck drivers she helped bring to Canada along with an immigration-consulting firm in Seoul.

[...]

In their complaints, the drivers said they each paid thousands of dollars to the unregulated recruiter in Seoul, who teamed up with Simao to find them Canadian employment.

The drivers said they were told they would earn $60,000 a year and could expect to get Canadian permanent residency after getting a work permit. However, the jobs evaporated because their English was not up to par.

The woman was found guilty because she was exposed by the Toronto Star investigation on corrupt immigration consultants which you can read here if you haven't read it already. It's a good piece however they paint the immigrants as hapless victims of a corrupt system when in fact many immigrants are willing participants when if comes to defrauding the Canadian immigration and refugee systems. As for the immigration consultant in question the article doesn't make clear what punishment will be meted out. One thing that is clear is if you see one corrupt immigration consultant there's a whole lot more you're not seeing which is why I think this woman is just a scapegoat and the disciplinary council is for show. Immigration consultants are unregulated and unlicensed and thus anybody can be one. Immigration consultants are one of the reasons our immigration system is a mess. Living like parasites off the immigration industry immigration consultancy is plagued with corruption, incompetency, and unethical behaviour.

The first nuclear power plant to be built in Ontario in more than 20 years could be more than three times larger than what the Liberal government said was needed when it first outlined its nuclear plan in 2006.

Environmentalists are calling it a classic "bait-and-switch" aimed at avoiding a public backlash when the plan was first announced.

[...]

A 3,500-megawatt plant would be one of the largest nuclear projects in the world, roughly equal to the size of the existing generating station at Darlington, and would be big enough to power all homes and businesses in Toronto. It would be located either at Darlington or the Bruce generating station near Kincardine. The document also asks that proposals give the government the "option" to build one or two additional reactors.

I don't know why I am even writing this. Canada's environmentalists are so stupid I just assumed they can't even read. Maybe if I write simple words in big bold letters they might get it. IT'S MASS IMMIGRATION STUPIDS!!! Why do you think Ontario needs another Darlington sized nuclear power plant? Think morons!!!

I came across this in the Friday, March 14, 2008 edition of the Toronto Star. Lined across the top of page A3 are nine white faces of which seven are male. Here are the names from left to right: Kevin Donovan, Andrew Bailey, David Bruser, Spencer Wynn, Brian Hughes, Patrick Corrigan, David Cooper, Tara Walton, and Mary Ormsby. Those names say a lot don't they. They have been nominated for some award or whatever as if anyone really cares. What is interesting is how little ethnic diversity exists at the Toronto Star. Here is the newspaper that gave us the White Jays story yet hypocritically is lacking the kind of diversity on it's writing staff that it self-righteously harangued the Toronto Blue Jays for.

Take a look at the Toronto Star's columists. Wow!!! How's that for diversity? I guess for the Toronto Star ethnic minorities are best seen and not heard don't you think?

If your want to find an example of hypocrisy the Toronto Star is the first place you should look. How disgusting of them really, to be concerned about the plight of immigrants yet can't be bothered to hire any immigrant writers aside from maybe one or two. To claim the benefits of diversity, mass immigration, and multiculturalism yet doesn't seem to care for such things when it comes to it's writers. I guess that's for other people.

I think we should demand more immigrant writers at the Toronto Star. They will bring with them the diversity that the Toronto Star sorely lacks. If need be they should "let go" some of the white writers. They'll understand that it's for the better just like all the other Canadians who must suffer lost or diminished wages and a lower standard of living to accommodate the unfettered influx of future Toronto Star readers. After all what's good for the goose is good for the gander.

A parade was held in Burnaby, British Columbia organized by Sikhs to honour the "revolutionary saint" Shri Guru Ravidass. You can read about it here. Now, I would have ignored this but the fact the the event organizers planned it for March 15, 2008 got me thinking. The March 15th weekend is the weekend before St. Patrick's day which is on the 17th and as we all know you can always expect a parade to mark the day along with green beer and bad fake Irish accents.

There are 365 days in the year. There are 52 weekends. Why did the Sikh parade organizers decide on the weekend of St. Patrick's day? Bad planning? Ignorance? Please. I am sure these Sikhs have been in Canada long enough to know that March 17th is St. Patrick's day and the celebration of all things Irish which essentially means stereotyping the Irish as drunken louts. And if they honestly didn't know, which is highly unlikely, they could have consulted their calendar. You know, the one they used to decide which day to have a parade, that marks March 17th as St. Patrick's day in very clear bold lettering.

I get the suspicion that this Sikh parade was deliberately planned to coincide with St. Patrick's day to either piggy back off the popularity of St. Patty's day or to directly compete with it. St. Patrick's day honours a Christian Saint. The Sikhs honoured a Sikh saint. Parades mark the arrival of St. Patrick's day on March 17th. The Sikhs had a parade to honour their Saint on March 15th. St. Patrick's day is an event marked on calenders across the Anglo-sphere. The Sikhs, well I guess they're working on it and if their parade is meant to be an annual event then I imagine they are gunning for March 15th, two day before the day of St. Patrick.

I don't really care for St. Patrick's day. I don't consider St. Patrick's day a Canadian event. It's just an excuse to get drunk from what I can tell. But the Irish are part of the founding/settler people of Canada so I suppose St. Patrick's day does have a place. Sikhs, and South Asians as a people, are not founding/settlers. In fact, they are still a foreign people where almost 75% of South Asian Canadians are immigrants, which means they are just South Asians with Canadian citizenship that's all. But they can have their parades to honour their religious figures if they want so why plan one to coincide with St. Patrick's day when there are 51 other weekends to choose from?

If this is an act of cultural aggression, which I suspect it is, then we can expect more of this kind of behaviour in a future Canada where multicultural dialogue means competition for public attention. In this kind of Canada real Canadian history is forgotten and any real Canadian identity is erased to give way to histories and cultures formed abroad. In effect Canada ceases to exist as a real country.

Recent immigrants from Europe have an edge over most newcomer groups in obtaining employment and their lead persists over time, a new Statistics Canada study has found.

The report, released yesterday, found that only 8.4 per cent of newcomers from Europe who arrived here between 2001 and 2005 were unemployed in 2006, a rate that more than doubled to 20.8 per cent for those arriving from African countries during the same period.

European newcomers also fared better than those from Latin America, whose unemployment rate was 10.5 per cent, and from Asia, at 11.1 per cent.

[...]

European immigrants in Canada 10 years or more had a 4 per cent unemployment rate, outperforming peers from Asia (5.5 per cent), Latin America (6.1 per cent) and Africa (7.6 per cent).

[...]

While European immigrants are most adaptable in the Canadian job market, those born in Southeast Asia, particularly the Philippines, had the strongest labour market performance of all immigrants to Canada in 2006, regardless of when they landed in the country.

Filipino immigrants had an unemployment rate of 5.4 per cent within their first five years in Canada, which dropped to 2.4 per cent after 10 years.

This is understandable when you realize that many of them are imported to work as nannies. Not exactly the kind of skilled immigrants Canada is supposed to be attracting. It has nothing to do with "their colonial history giving them a stronger language and education background and making them more accustomed to Western culture." The same thing can be said of South Asian immigration. But that aside the fact that Filipinos had the lowest unemployment rate should lay waste to the assumption that there is a "European bias" as the headline suggests.

By comparison, 12 per cent and 9.6 per cent of newcomers from China and India were unemployed, respectively, within five years, though the numbers dropped by half after a decade.

The success of European immigration is due to the fact that many of them enter Canada with relevant job and language skills. Chinese, Africans, and South Asians are more likely to enter Canada as bogus refugees or imported family members and immigrants who enter Canada via these routes do not need pertinent job or language skills. I am sure it is because of this that Chinese, African, and South Asian immigrants have higher unemployment rates.

Also, Europeans tend to come to Canada with job skills that are actually needed. For instance you do not see Chinese or South Asians working at construction sites. This shows our immigration system is out of touch with reality. We do not need more IT specialists from India. We do need more plumbers from Poland. That being the case then why is India and China the top two source countries for Canadian immigration? They shouldn't be. We should be decreasing immigration from these countries and increasing immigration from Europe.

Hazel McCallion is a rare breed in Canadian politics. She is not afraid to openly criticize multiculturalism while retaining her office as mayor of an immigrant heavy, ethnically diverse city like Mississauga. Mississauga, for those who don't know, is the adjoining city east of Toronto past Etobicoke and, like Toronto, is on the fast track of becoming a city of a million plus residents where the majority are immigrants and whites are a minority. Sadly, it takes guts to say what she says and you don't see her much appreciated candor anywhere in Canadian politics. That's because for many, politics is just a career move and they will say anything to get elected and this includes extolling the virtues of mass immigration and multiculturalism whether they agree with it or not or have no real opinion on it one way or the other. Getting elected is a short term goal but unfortunately the decisions people make in office have long term consequences. Are you a political party having trouble getting elected in once conservative Toronto? Then flood it with immigrants and problem solved. Are you a candidate in an immigrant heavy riding? Then promoting mass immigration and the displacing effects it has on the existing residents is your ticket to Ottawa, prestige, and a handsome pension. Who cares about the wake you leave while in office? Getting elected isn't about serving the people. It's all about you.

"An awful lot of money is spent on multiculturalism and on keeping our immigrants separated rather than integrated," Ms. McCallion said in an interview.

"They've been given all kinds of money over the years to have their own organization, their own programs, and I think there should be more money spent on integration, in other words, encouraging them to get involved in all the organizations within a community like the service clubs and the sports groups."

Immigrants prefer it this way. They have no real intention of integrating. If they did then they had the opportunity to show it a long time ago but the existence, persistence, and growth of ethnic enclaves reveals their true intent. The only integration they want is economic integration. Culturally they prefer segregation or balkanization and try to convince everyone that Turbans, saris, dread locks, and dragon boat races are a Canadian as hockey, maple syrup, and butter tarts.

As for the money McCallion is talking about that is pubic money doled out to curry favour from ethnic voting blocks. In other words politicians use tax dollars to bribe ethnic voters so that they can stay in office, the kind of thing that disgraced Liberal MPP Mike Colle (who is an immigrant from Italy by the way) was doing when he gave $1 million dollars to a cricket club and $15 million to the United Jewish Appeal Federation. In any case, its just more money to throw on the mountain of cash needed to sustain the immigration industry all the while Canadians need to fly to the United States for an MRI. It's a disgrace!

Ms. McCallion said she knows the value of cultural groups and does not want to "cut off" their funding.

However, she argues in favour of stepping up outreach efforts that help integrate the growing number of new residents who are choosing to live in the cities outside of Toronto.

According to 2006 Census data, Peel and York regions had the highest immigrant population growth in the Greater Toronto Area, with a 32% and 34% increase, respectively, from 2001 to 2006. Toronto, by comparison, had the lowest in the region, with a 2% increase.

Immigrants now make up about half of Toronto's population, 49% of Peel region's and 43% of people living in York.

Funding programs to integrate immigrants is just more wasted money because immigrants have shown they posses no desire to fully integrate into Canadian society. If they really wanted to then they will but the fact is they don't. The problem is official multiculturalism. Get rid of it. The other problem is the mass importation of culturally dissimilar people from so few countries (like India, China, and the Philippines for instance). This practice needs to stop.

Tuesday, 4 March 2008

Increasing density in urban centers is one remedy pro mass immigration advocates promote to deal with a rapidly growing population that is fueling urban sprawl, traffic congestion, and the general degradation of Canada's natural environment. So it is no surprise that the Toronto Star would advocate such an idea. Here is an article written by Toronto Star architecture critic Christopher Hume. In it he promotes increasing urban density over the future "suburban slums" of North America.

Downtown density will prevail over slums of suburbia

Mar 03, 2008 04:30 AMChristopher Hume

At the moment of its triumph, suburbia is starting to show signs of collapse.

Having remade the face of North America, the tide now seems to be turning against the 'burbs. The downfall won't be quick, but already the unthinkable is starting to happen.

[...]

In short, Leinberger charts the return to the city that began late in the last century and has been picking up speed ever since. Toronto is a good example; just look at the condo boom, now in its third decade, and the rising price of housing in neighbourhoods that until the 1970s, '80s and '90s, were assiduously avoided by the middle class, areas such as Cabbagetown, Riverdale and now Parkdale.

Christopher Hume should know that Realtors, speculators, and property flippers, are the ones driving the condo boom. Also, contractors are driving up housing prices by buying houses, renovating them or razing them entirely to build a new house, and then selling it at a more inflated price. In other words there is sort of a pseudo construction boom going on in southern Ontario were speculation is driving the market instead of real demand.

Also Parkdale was a nice neighbourhood before mass immigration ruined it. The erection of high density buildings to accommodate new immigrants pretty much turned that part of town into an urban slum. If you live in Toronto go and visit Parkdale and you will see what I mean. But if the middle classes are moving in this will drive out the working class immigrant populations already living there. They will need to look for affordable housing elsewhere and I guess this search will lead them to the suburbs and hence the establishment of suburban slums.

Looking back at the postwar conditions that unleashed the explosion of suburbia, it's clear the growth was inspired as much as anything by a desire to escape from the city. Density, associated with danger, disease and decay, was the enemy.

Sixty years later, beset by gridlock, shoddy construction and environmental degradation that can no longer be ignored, density has started to look good again.

Gridlock, shoddy construction and environmental degradation? Does mass immigration have anything to do with this? Nah. We all know mass immigration has zero influence on urban sprawl, traffic congestion, and incentives to build sub par housing.

And as Boomers grow older and couples put off having children, the appeal of the subdivision wanes even further. The result, Leinberger argues, is that the suburbs could well be on their way to becoming America's "next slum."

Research by David Hulchanski at the University of Toronto has already found that poverty here is being pushed out of its historic inner-city precincts and into "postwar inner suburbs" and "large postwar housing projects." Read Scarborough, Etobicoke, Jane-Finch, Rexdale and the like.

These neighbourhoods are all characterized by high density, high crime rates, low incomes, and high concentrations of immigrants. In Scarborough it is mostly Asian and Tamil. In Etobicoke he means north Etobicoke where Rexdale is located and in this neighbourhood it is mostly South Asians (East and West Indians, Sikhs, Hindus, Tamils, Muslims), and Africans (mostly Somali) and immigrants from the Caribbean. Jane-Finch is the same as Rexdale, in fact its not too far from it geographically, but it is mostly characterized by Jamaican immigration. So we see that it is mass immigration that has turned these suburbs into suburban slums. I'd also like to add another one: Chinatown at Spadina and Dundas but this is urban and not suburban so I guess it doesn't count.

Not only is mass immigration adding fuel to urban sprawl but it is also laying waste to once safe and clean neighbourhoods. The problem is not immigration but mass immigration of the current variety. Canada is introducing too many people into our cities particularly those who shouldn't be here. But since our immigration system is a numbers game it doesn't really matter who gets in.

Christopher Hume won't make the connection between mass immigration and the "slumming" of Canadian neighbourhoods but ideology will blind anyone to the obvious.

Britain is experiencing unprecedented levels of immigration with more than half a million foreigners arriving to live here in a single year, new figures show.

Last year, 510,000 foreign migrants came to the UK to stay for at least 12 months, according to the Office for National Statistics. At the same time 400,000 people, more than half of whom were British, emigrated.

An exodus on this scale - amounting to one British citizen leaving the country every three minutes - has not been seen in the UK for almost 50 years.

Overall in 2006, there were a record 591,000 new arrivals. Only 14 per cent of these were Britons coming home.

By Robert Winnett, Deputy Political EditorLast Updated: 3:28am GMT 26/02/2008

Britain is experiencing the worst "brain drain" of any country as highly qualified professionals settle abroad, an authoritative international study showed yesterday.

Record numbers of Britons are leaving - many of them doctors, teachers and engineers - in the biggest exodus for almost 50 years.

[...]

No other nation is losing so many qualified people, it points out. Britain has now lost more than one in 10 of its most skilled citizens, while overall only Mexico has had more people emigrate.

[...]

The most popular destinations are English-speaking countries such as Australia, America, Canada and New Zealand and holiday areas including France and Spain.

[...]

The emigration was leading to a rapid change in British society as large numbers of highly-skilled immigrants moved to this country to replace those leaving, he said.

"Britain has been lucky - although it has lost substantial numbers of people, it has attracted more than a million skilled immigrants to replace them. If they stop coming then that would be a problem."

Responding to this last paragraph the same thing was said here as Canadians left Canada to find employment primarily in the United States. They did so because they couldn't find suitable employment in their field in Canada but this insignificant detail didn't stop Ottawa from importing record numbers of superfluous labour.

In any case it is still population replacement and that is exactly what this is. As Britons leave the island nation they are replaced by immigrants, forever changing the face of that country and erasing what made Britain British in the first place. The same thing is happening here even though Canadians are pretty much staying put despite the weather. Canada is a damn fine country to live in, winter and all and we Canadians know it. That's why we're Canadians and damn proud of it. But our low birth rate cannot withstand the mass influx of foreign populations and if the trend is allowed to continue indefinitely the host population will be replaced by another or others, mostly Asian and South Asian. Is this something worth pursuing? Is this something we want to allow? What good is it to make the dominate white host population a minority in Canada or anywhere for the matter like in Britain or in the U.S. where it is predicted that whites will become a minority by 2050?

When immigration becomes a policy of population replacement it is no longer immigration: it's colonialism.

Saturday, 1 March 2008

Here is an interesting piece published by Macleans magazine. It's not bereft of the usual rhetoric like the following paragraph.

Since it was enshrined as official policy in 1971, multiculturalism has been worn by Canadians as a badge of honour even as its consequences have remained happily abstract. But if tolerance has long been one of the touchstones of Canadian identity, there is reason to believe our cherished multicultural tapestry is fraying.

Do Canadians wear state enforced multiculturalism as a badge of honour? This journalist doesn't really know that so how can Martin Patriquin say so with such surety? How can any journalist for that matter? The truth is they can't and I'd say it is much more accurate to state that most Canadians don't care about multiculturalism. It means nothing to them. I for one think official multiculturalism is an embarrassing mistake and it is turning the average well mannered Canadian into a "bigot".

The article does publish some interesting figures.

When asked if they agreed with the following statement -- "it is reasonable to accommodate religious and cultural minorities" -- a mere 18 per cent said yes. How many thought immigrants should "adapt fully to culture in Canada"? Fifty-three per cent. When it came to accommodating religious and cultural minorities in public places, such as schools, hospitals and government buildings, 37 per cent thought there should be no accommodation at all, with smaller portions accepting some accommodation but only six per cent advocating full accommodation. The numbers were even more striking for accommodation in the workplace, with 45 per cent saying there should be none, and just four per cent agreeing with full accommodation.

[...]

The geographic breakdowns were indeed stark. A full 77 per cent of Quebecers thought immigrants should fully adapt(just five per cent said it was reasonable to accommodate), and in Ontario 49 per cent agreed(with just 22 per cent saying accommodation was reasonable). Perhaps suprisingly, given their relative provincial images, support for accommodation was highest in the Atlantic provinces, Alberta and the Prairies.

It is easy to see why Quebec's and Ontario's figures are so high when you realize that Quebec and Ontario receive the bulk of immigrants to this country. If immigrants were flooding into Alberta and the Atlantic provinces at the rate they are in Quebec and Ontario then you'd see similar numbers. The truth is Canadians are fed up with accommodation and the transformation of their public spaces into de facto colonies of foreign countries.

The SES poll does suggest those with less education, as well as older Canadians, tended to be less accommodating. Only 17 per cent of Canadians aged 55 to 64 thought it was reasonable to accommodate, compared with 24 per cent of those aged 25 to 34. And as for education, just 24 per cent of those with a university education saw accommodation as reasonable, while 50 per cent said immigrants should integrate. This is higher than the 9.6 per cent with a high-school education or less who saw accommodation as reasonable, but it hardly amounts to a ringing endorsement.

Nor does income seem to have much to do with the degree of tolerance. Canada's middle class, the SES poll indicates, is least at ease with the idea of accommodating religious and cultural minorities: roughly 64 per cent of those earning between $40,000 and $49,999 a year believe it is up to immigrants to fully adapt to Canadian culture, a full 18 percentage points higher than among those earning less than $25,000, and 8.7 percentage points higher than those earning between $50,000 and $74,999.(The numbers drop off again among those earning $75,000 or more.)

If Canada is becoming a nation of bigots then blame mass immigration and multiculturalism. If you want to eliminate racism then cut immigration levels and abandon multiculturalism as official social policy.

The problem I have with this article is that it implies that it is white Canadians who are becoming bigoted and this is because they are expressing reservations about accommodation and daring to expect immigrants to integrate into the culture of the country they willing chose to immigrate to. So refusal to accommodate is a bigoted act. Is refusal to integrate a bigoted act as well? It is because the sentiment is the same. However in the event of a cultural stand off the onus is upon the immigrant to accommodate because he or she chose to move to another country. It's just common sense and good old fashioned manners. But multiculturalism removes that responsibility and unjustly places it upon the host population. This is why cultural minority groups love state enforced multiculturalism. It allows them to have their cake and eat it too.

Multiculturalism also removes all power from the host population to define itself. So refusal to accommodate is just an act of dissent and civil disobedience to a state enforced policy that was undemocratically imposed upon the Canadian people and denies them their collective right to define themselves as a people. So I hope more Canadians refuse to accommodate. This is Canada and its time to take our country back.